


Bound To You

by icabyppup



Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders Has Panic Attacks, Captivity, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Angst, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders is a Good Friend, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Gore, Hurt Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Hurt Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Gore, Mild Language, No. 1 - let's hang out sometime, Pain, Panic Attacks, Whump, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020, Why Did I Write This?, because its, potential warnings:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:08:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26747137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icabyppup/pseuds/icabyppup
Summary: This is literally just Roman whump.That's it.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders
Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947316
Comments: 22
Kudos: 80
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Bound To You

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why I wrote this. I really don't. I wanted to write Sanders Sides, I wanted to start whumptober, This Happened. If this is liked, I might write a follow up chapter of comfort fluff.
> 
> As always, my eternal thanks to CaralsTrash for combined brain cell use. Love you! <3 <3

“Huh?”

The sound of rough wheezing wormed its way into Roman’s sleep-heavy head, burying into his consciousness and preventing him from drifting off for a few more minutes of beauty sleep.

Rude.

Rolling to the side, he-

_ Ow. Owowowowowow- _

__

Okay, not rolling to the side. What the heck?

The initial searing pain served as a great wake-up call, and now, even carefully still, Roman could feel an  _ ache  _ running up his torso. Banding through his muscle and up into his shoulders, running all the way up to-

Oh. Well, that wasn’t ideal.

The slow-smouldering embers faded away somewhere around his wrists, his hands and fingers notably missing from the equation. The pain started dull in his torso and intensified the higher it climbed, almost unbearable in his forearms. Maybe that was why his hand were numb, he mused. Higher up means more pain, so they must hurt the most. Wait, higher up?

Oh.

Roman was suspended by his hands, back pressed against a wall and feet blessedly on the floor. Gritting his teeth, he tried to separate his wrists. The resulting wave of pain had him biting his yell into his cheek, but told him that his wrists were bound together. He tried to breathe through the pain, keep his mind focussed, but when he inhaled his breath hitched. He forced himself to exhale shallowly and keep to an even rhythm of breaths. The position must be restricting his lung capacity.

Take stock. Work out your condition, your surroundings, your captors. Escape.

It was a tried and true formula, not that Roman would ever tell the others. If they knew how much danger he got into on quests, well. Patton’s reaction alone would be reason enough to take cover for a few years. Even if Logan would probably be proud of his logical approach. The creative side allowed himself a brief smirk, then back into it.

Condition down, surroundings to go. Roman allowed himself to turn his focus outwards, pushing back the pain. He blinked a couple times, but his vision didn’t change. Right, the dark. Probably why he thought he was in bed when he first woke up.

Wait, the wheezing noise.

Once he moved his focus outwards it was surprisingly loud. Erratic and frantic, it reminded Roman of a wounded animal. Or Virgil hurtling towards a panic attack.

Virgil…

Oh shit.

__

Upon that realisation, the pieces clicked into place. Memories aligned and built themselves up like one of those 3D puzzles Logan was fond of, but Patton found a bit too hard. Virgil had seemed a bit down, so Roman invited him for a walk in the imagination garden. And it was nice at first, peaceful. But then…

How could he be so stupid? Forgetting to switch into creative mode, in the garden of all places, and with Virgil there too.

Virgil, who was now locked up in some fairy-tale dungeon thanks to him. Virgil, who was already having a bad day and _absolutely_ _did_ _not_ need this. Virgil, who was the source of the wheezing noise that only a moment ago he had thought sounded like Virgil hurtling towards a panic attack.

Oh,  _ shit. _

__

“Virgil?”

The wheezing fluctuated, as good as a response Roman was going to get. The creative side thanked his lucky stars that Virgil was still with it enough to hear him.

“Hey, uh, it’s okay.”

Roman fought to keep his voice even and gentle while every syllable grated his tendons over coals. He couldn’t afford to give into the pain, not now. He was already shit at helping with panic attacks, the last thing that would help was saying the wrong thing in a bad way. God, he would give his best pair of tap shoes for Patton to be here right now.

“I’m going to breathe so you can hear me. See if you can try to match my pattern, but it’s okay if you can’t.”

Roman inhaled loudly, ignoring the burning tightness in his chest. He exhaled again, fighting to keep his pace even. Inhale, exhale. Repeat.

Virgil’s haggard breaths did not change.

After a minute or so of this, Roman’s chest was heaving tightly, and he felt like he’d been sucking air in with a straw. Lightheaded, he had to concede defeat. He was no use to Virgil passed out, and this didn’t really seem to be working anyway.

Okay, time for plan B…

What was plan B again?

Roman mentally recounted their communal discussion about panic attacks. Breathing strategies were a no-go, and most grounding techniques would at best be ineffective and at worse horribly backfire in a mysterious dark cell while tied up painfully. Okay, think. What else did Virgil say helped?

Reassurances. Okay, okay, he could do that. Just remind the anxious side that he was safe.

Technically,  _ safe  _ might be a bit of a stretch…

What did they have? Not much, to tell the truth. It was just the two of them in some probably-slimy dungeon.

“Virgil? You still with me?”

The gasped breaths fluctuated again. Good.

“Just focus on my voice, okay? Don’t think about anything else. Just focus on me.”

There was nothing else, so Roman talked.

He talked about his plans for the next video, about his current projects, about what he wanted for dinner. He told Virgil stories about Logan and Patton, and re-told fond memories of the four of them. He talked about his past quests and how he’d got out of worse situations before, so you don’t need to worry, I’ve got this. Fighting tooth and nail for control, he imbued his every word with the confidence he wished he had, the strength he needed, the bravado he was so well known for.

He could do this.

When he ran out of stories, Roman sung himself hoarse to the tune of Virgil’s slowing pants. He lost all concept of time past the measure of one breath to the next, over analysing the seconds and  _ praying  _ for the next gasp to hold off for  _ just a little longer, you can do this… _

Slowly, oh so slowly, Virgil’s breathing quietened. Roman allowed his voice to fall away.

Silence, and then,

“You really never stop talking, do you Princey?”

The words were more air than sound, whispered from a throat now as hoarse as his own and Roman couldn’t help the bark of laughter they forced out of him. He was  _ so relieved, God, that was terrifying. _

He catalogued the admission and then shelved it, right at the back of his mind. The  _ very  _ back.

“Admit it, you wouldn’t want me to.”

“No,” Virgil replied, syllables as dry and scratchy as sandpaper, “I wouldn’t.”

Roman cleared his throat.

“How are you feeling?”

From the sound of his voice, Virgil was maybe a couple meters to the left of him. Roman inched his foot out, sharply biting his tongue when the movement loaded burning pressure onto his right shoulder. He had to avoid worrying Virgil.

“Better.”  _ Thank the heavens. _

“Good. I’m going to get us out of here, okay, but I need to know how injured you are.”

He could feel Virgil’s reaction, a tangible mix of displeasure and reluctance apparent even from meters away in the dark.

“I need you to be honest so we can get out. It’s important, Virgil.”

“No need to be so dramatic.” Virgil’s voice was slowly regaining stability coming down from his panic, but Roman could hear an increasing tightness triggered by pain. “My hands are tied above my head. My shoulders and arms hurt. I- I can’t feel my hands, and my chest is so tight, I can barely breathe- “

“You can breathe Virgil, you’re okay.”

The anxious side exhaled shakily into the dark.

“Yep.”

“Anything else?”

By the sounds of it, Virgil was in the same boat as him. Thank the stars he had no other injuries.

“That’s it.”

Okay, condition worked out. Step one complete.

Step two: take stock of your surroundings.

“Virgil, is there anything near you that could be helpful? Anything in the wall?”

He heard clothes rustling, and a grunt of pain. Despite all his instincts to stop Virgil from hurting himself any further, Roman needed to know if there was anything over there.

“No, sorry.”

Stretching his leg out, Roman deliberately probed his foot in an arc to the left. He kept his body centred, minimising the strain on his shoulders. Not something Virgil would know to do, he realised. He clenched his stomach in preparation for shifting his weight, but still gasped a little when his shoulders jarred.

“Roman?”

He took note of Virgil’s increasingly laboured breathing. Right, still panicky, and neither of them were up for Panic Attack pt. II, The Sequel.

“Right here, my damsel of darkness.”

“What the hell?”

“You do need saving, don’t you?”

Roman extended his right foot, planting his left as he slowly swept an arc across the doubtlessly mouldy floor.

“And who’s fault is that?”

_ Oof _ , that one was a bit close to home. Well, Virgil was right regardless.

Roman’s foot unexpectedly connected with something solid, throwing him off balance just the  _ tiniest _ fraction – just enough to land all of his weight on one shoulder joint.

He couldn’t help the whimper that slipped out of his lips.

“Princey?”

“I’m okay!”

He corrected his balance and slid his foot around the object, mapping the shape.

“And I call bullshit.”

His toe traced an edge, gently sloping to a fine point. He could kiss whoever was responsible for his sword lying just within reach. Unless it was one of their captors, because Roman had a Rule about kissing the enemy.

“You do that. I’m getting us out of here.”

Roman peeled his weight back to rest on his heel and inched the ball of his foot up just enough to trap the blade. The faint scrape of metal on stone echoed in the room.

“You found something?”

“Please, hold the applause to the end of the show.”

It was only any help if Roman could get it over to them. And then somehow use it to cut his bonds.

This would hurt.

One step at a time.

Roman sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and lifted his right foot off the ground.

The pain was instant, searing from his numb fingers down the left side of his body. Heat bit at his muscles and he tasted blood.

Stamping down on the sword, he pulled his leg in. Keeping the blade trapped beneath his foot, he inched the weapon closer.

The only sounds in the room were Roman’s laboured breaths and the harsh pull of metal.

“You okay?”

The sword was at his feet. Now to cut the ties at his wrists.

Easy peasy.

“Don’t worry.”

Cursing his inability to clench his fists, he bit back into the welt his teeth left and attempted to pull his feet off the ground. He only managed to lift them a few inches before dropping back onto the stones, a strangled cry escaping his lips.

Well, that wasn’t happening.

“Roman?” There was panic in Virgil’s voice.

“It’s okay Virgil,” he panted, “Don’t worry.”

He wracked his brains, searching his creativity for some way to get them out. Any way. He tugged on the ropes, testing their strength. Not much point trying to minimise pain at this point. In for a dime, in for a dollar.

No give. His teeth sunk further into the fleshy mess of his lip.

An idea came, unbidden. Veering slightly more into Remus’s general domain of thought than his ideas usually were. He winced away from it.

_ Afraid. _

__

The Prince does not do fear. The Prince is selfless. The Prince rescues.

Oh, well. Guess it really is ‘in for a dime, in for a dollar’.

This is going to  _ hurt. _

Roman took one very shaky breath and yanked. Pain burnburnburned through the

nerves in his arms and he stifled a sob as he repeated the action, lifting onto

the balls of his feet and dropping like a stone, letting his body weight and

gravity converge on the delicate bones in his hand.

Unsurprisingly, the forces of the universe won out over a few layers of brittle tissue.

A grating  _ crunch _ echoed through the cell.

“Roman!”

He couldn’t help the sob when he landed on the floor, the rough landing shaking

every aching cell in his body. His hands were still numb, a blessing and a curse.

He could hear Logan’s voice in his head, saying words like ‘nerve damage’.

But he had Virgil’s real,  _ here _ voice in his ears, sounding oh so worried and he couldn’t have that. Shelve the pain, focus on the next step: getting Virgil out.

“T’s okay,” he breathed, allowing a few tears to roll down his cheeks in the darkness as he manoeuvred onto his knees and shuffled across the floor to the other side. His head bumped Virgil’s knee and he  _ fought  _ the temptation to let it rest there.

Picking up the sword was a mess of colour and light and pain that had his head spinning, fumbling with wrists and elbows in the darkness. Virgil mumbled a steady stream of reassurances, nonetheless sounding scared.

Standing. Right.

“V-rgil? ‘M sorry but c’n I lean on you?”

“Yes, Princey,” there were more words, but Roman let them drift past him as unimportant.

Leaning heavily against the wall and Virgil’s body, he slowly drew himself to his feet.

His lip would need stitches, he registered detachedly.

The world blurred, psychedelic and so much worse than last time. Virgil shushed him gently as he forced his arms up once yet again and every muscle was  _ drowned  _ in  _ acid  _ and then somehow,  _ somehow  _ Virgil was catching him with his body weight, rope shredded.

There was a pain on top of pain in his arm, and something clanged against the floor.

He could feel warmth on his cheeks, warmth on his thigh.

He let Virgil lead him out of the dark, the two of them stumbling through gradients of grey until all his senses were flooded with bright,  _ bright _ white. There was a pain in his knees, barely registered amongst the rest of his body and then something soft and slightly scratchy against his face and then he was gone, drifting away to the sound of his name rasped on the breeze.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if you like this in the comments, it would really mean the world to me. I'm going to continue this story in several parts across a series, so if you liked it please stick around!


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